The Arbour

the pink crocus twins
by the cannon ball tree,
seemed to take her side again,
their heavy fragrance
pollinating the emptiness around her;

every day in the still-dark,
sitting on the broken park bench,
the sky still splattered
in a million dew drops,
variegated dreams,
like apparitions,
fading slowly over the trees,
the flowers
whispering softly in her ear;

the cactus flower in its raspy voice,
chanting Ghalib and Blake,
wrapping heartache in honeyed metaphysics,
uncovering mandalas in her pain;

a solitary white brahmakamal,
wilting in the first breath of dawn,
an ephemeral prototype
of eternal love unborn;

and like a schoolyard bully,
dragging her petrified thoughts,
a trail of yellow button roses,
stretching to the arbour beyond;

where the bruised ivy grew,
where the tongue-tied lilies knew,
where ice cold fear crept,
where redacted memories flew;

every day in the still-dark,
the heady screams rising slowly over the trees,
the flowers whispered in her ear.

Linked to the Poets United midweek prompt “bullying”.